Tag Archives: i love to read

Some of y’all may remember that I set a loose goal at the beginning of 2018 to “read more”. I began following some #bookstagram accounts and listening to some podcasts to get fresh ideas for books to look into – not that I didn’t already have a hundred (that’s only MAYBE an exaggeration) unread books around my home

I had a pretty productive summer in terms of reading, so I thought I’d share a few little reviews/thoughts of the books I’ve read recently. If you follow me on Instagram (@onlyhsuman) you may have already seen a bit about some of these books, but enjoy what I’ve got here. If you’re local, I am happy to lend books that I’ve got in print (as opposed to Kindle editions) so let me know if you’d like to borrow one!

FICTION

Crazy Rich Asians and China Rich Girlfriend : These books are a particular sort of hilarious. I heard a podcast recently that described them as a bag of chips: not good for you but delicious and you can’t stop eating them. That’s a perfect description. Not incredible writing, but for some reason you’re hooked! The world in which the characters live is just so outrageous to American me that I cannot fathom it’s real life. But the plot in the second book is even better than the first, so I’m already looking forward to the third book – and seeing the movie!

Anne of Green Gables: I never read these books as a kid, but MAN I love them now! I guess I’m only halfway through Anne of Avonlea, but still. L.M. Montgomery’s style is so beautiful, Anne is a gal I can easily connect with (Can you say kindred spirit?!), and I’m loving the immersion in Avonlea’s community. What beautiful writing it is!

The Lake House. I have been a Kate Morton lover for a long time, and this just happens to be one that slipped by me until recently. Such a good read, a full-on dive into the world surrounding said lake house, the family, and the present-day cop that’s digging to find out long-ago truths. Definitely a good, long read for coming out of a reading slump!

All We Ever Wanted: I haven’t read anything by Emily Giffin since Something Borrowed and Something Blue, and this one was a nice foray back into those rom-com novels. There was a bit of teen angst written into this one, so every once in a while I had to read quickly to get past it, but all in all it was a good story, and I liked the character development.

Where the Crawdads Sing: Now THIS is a fantastic book! A beautifully written debut novel, it has some North Carolina roots, with a nice few twists added in. I love a good novel that can switch time periods along the same storyline successfully – and as we follow the story from a decade apart, finally bringing them towards the end, we get to see the main character grow up, and find herself and her life’s work.

NON-FICTION

Saturate: Jeff Vanderstelt opens the door to his life and how hospitality works for his family. He encourages us to live as Jesus would: sharing each part of your life with your community, allowing them to minister you as well as offering your ministry to them.

Glimpses of Grace: Gloria Furman is a WONDERFUL, Scripture-based writer, and she encourages the weary mama to find joy and meaning in the often exhausting and difficult seasons of motherhood.

The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Rosaria Butterfield’s colorful background and incredible testimony give this book the power it needs to go straight into your heart. Another take on Christian hospitality, Rosaria practices what she calls radically ordinary hospitality, no matter the sacrifices (and there are certainly sacrifices).

Girl Wash Your Face: I expounded a lot on this book on Everyday Exiles (link to the article here) but my main point was to read with caution, because she says she’s a Christian, but doesn’t point to Jesus very much. There were some good takeaways, certainly – don’t hear me say I didn’t like anything. But I had a hard time with her telling us how responsible she was for her own life success, yet saying only a couple of times that she prayed about something. My ONLY successes have come from prayer and the old cliche “Let go and let God”, and I’m happy to tout JESUS as my hero, not myself. So read carefully.

I’d Rather Be Reading: Anne Bogel (also known as Modern Mrs. Darcy) has really outdone herself with the bookish feelings in this lovely little memoir-style book about books. And reading. And readers. And book lovers. It’s perfectly wonderful, and if you love reading or books you should absolutely read it! I read it right through in a day, and had quite a few happy, “Me too!” tears.

And the much-anticipated UPCOMING READS!

I’m excited to continue Madeleine L’Engle’s qunitet and L.M. Montgomery’s Anne series, but I’m also looking forward to Annie F. Downs’ newest book Remember God, and Shannan Martin’s book The Ministry of Ordinary Places. I’m also reading Heidi to EK right now and we’re both loving it!

WELL! Have you read any of these?! I’d love to hear a review or any thoughts you have! What are you reading these days?

I don’t always write book review about every book I read, no matter how hard I try. So here is a list of books I’ve recently finished, with a little blurb about them and why I would recommend them to you! (If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll have seen these titles throughout the last month!)

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. I heard about this one on a podcast (listen to it here! It’s Pictures and Pages, No. 3.) and immediately knew I needed to order it – and order it I did! Then I read it in less than a week. It’s a beautiful example of writing, with all the emotions and big feels you could want (any other Enneagram type 4’s?!) packed into an atypical post-apocalyptic story. Most books on the topic are young adult-driven, but this wasn’t as “easy read” as many of them are (not to say it was difficult). There were more surprises, more intricately-woven characters and connections than just a book written for teenagers and weird love triangles.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. This does happen to be a book that is often thought of as “children’s literature”, and I definitely read it first as a child. But a writer I love (Annie F. Downs) said she was reading all of L’Engle’s books this year, and I thought I’d try to join her since I had set a pretty lofty – for me in this life stage – goal of reading 25ish books this year. I am trying to read some of the books I’ve bought in the past, instead of only buying new ones (I know I just said I bought Station Eleven – that was an exception!) so I started with the only L’Engle already on my shelf! It’s beautifully written, a creative story representing a fight against darkness and sin. It also falls loosely into the sci-fi category, including time-travel (or wrinkling) and some strange occurrences therein.

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. This book was a part of Oprah’s Book Club, so you know it’s good. Written by a gal who grew up in a missionary family in China, she has a unique perspective of how life worked for a traditional Chinese family in the late 1800s-early 1900s. It was eye-opening from a cultural and historical perspective (assuming it’s pretty accurate) but also a neat story, spanning the entire lifetime of a rural farmer. This is an example of a book someone gave me to read that I didn’t get around to for a couple of years.

Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger. I have long loved Catcher in the Rye, and so when I spotted this one on my shelf (I think it was my Hubby’s) I had to read it! It is lovely prose, mostly just an ongoing conversation between siblings Franny and Zooey. There are incredible examples of where stream of consciousness takes us, and lots of big words I had to look up – which I consider to be a good thing!

The next book on my list (which I just started yesterday!) is The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, I also read her bookHag-Seed: The Tempest Retold last year. She’s become a favorite of mine.

What are you reading right now? What should I add to my list for the year?! Bonus points if you will let me borrow it!!

Y’all know I love a good book. I love it even more when I just can’t put it down. I love it EVEN MORE when I simultaneously can’t wait to see how it ends but don’t really want it to be over, because I’m attached to it. This book was all of that for me. I read it in a little over 24 hours – a testament to how good it was, and also that it happened to be that time of limbo between Christmas and New Year’s. The perfect time for a splendid read.

Image found on Amazon.com

It was an awesome combination of romance, a little history, some art, and surprises. Lucy Foley did an amazing job hopping back and forth from the past (mostly the 20s, but some parts up through WWII) and “present” (which happened to be the 80s). That often tends to confuse and/or frustrate me, but it was done clearly and purposefully, which I totally appreciated.

We follow Kate, who has recently lost the only family she knows, through a journey to find where she came from. Her mother, a prima ballerina, was adopted, and Kate needs to know who her family would have been if she hadn’t been given up. It’s an incredible journey through the past, and Kate’s feelings during the present, to find the truth, and from there, decide where she should go. There are wonderful, true feelings on every page, and a couple of love stories told, wanted, missed, and achieved. There are intricate characters to love, and ones to hate, just like every great book should have.

I can best describe the book with a great quote from near the end: You want a love story. But you see, I’ve given you a love story. It just doesn’t all work out the way one might have written it.

I must admit, when I caught sight of this book on the shelf at the library, I snagged it without even reading the cover, simply because I knew I had read Margaret Atwood before and loved it. So I began Hag-Seed without really knowing what I was getting into.

The book is a part of Hogarth Shakespeare, a project I actually hadn’t heard of before. It aims to see Shakespeare’s works retold by acclaimed modern novelists. The Tempest is the story being retold here, and to be honest, it’s a play I’m not familiar with, but Atwood summarizes it at the end of the book.

The premise of Hag-Seed is that a washed-up play director with a reputation for pushing boundaries gets screwed out of his job by a colleague. He has an epic meltdown, sets his sights on revenge, and then moves to a new town to start over, teaching literacy through theatre (read: Shakespeare) at a local prison. He takes Shakespeare’s plays, and adapts them for his rag-tag group of convicts, letting them take some artistic license, of course. Together they do costumes, set design, and even film the production at the end of the class to be viewed by the other inmates. Of course, the play being done when we are a part of the story is The Tempest. The director is definitely a little bit bonkers, obsessed with his former life and bringing his eccentricities with him to his new one, but it makes for an interesting read to see how everything comes together at the end.

I wouldn’t call it an easy beach read, but I would definitely say it’s worth a try! The beginning dragged a little for me, so don’t put it down when you realize the story doesn’t truly start till a few chapters in. Find it at your local library, and give Hogarth Shakespeare a try! I’d like to find another book from the project, and give it a try, too.